Energy

Wärtsilä in Morocco

MOROCCO'S ENERGY OUTLOOK AND CHALLENGES

The power demand and peak demand levels in the Moroccan energy system are expected to grow with approximately 4% annually until 2025. At the same time, Morocco has ambitious targets for increasing the share of solar and wind power in the national power mix in the near future. With such increasing amounts of intermittent renewable energy sources, flexibility is needed in the Moroccan energy system.

The Moroccan power demand and peak demand levels are expected to grow each year until 2025.

Morocco is an excellent place for solar power, and the country has plans to add approximately 2 GW of new solar power during the upcoming 5-10 years. Morocco also aims to increase their wind power capacity by 2 GW until 2020.

These actions will raise the overall amount of intermittent, unpredictable renewable energy sources to 26% of the entire energy capacity of the Moroccan power system.

THE NEED FOR FLEXIBLE PEAK LOAD PLANTS

To integrate more intermittent renewables into the national power system and to cope with the growing amount of power and peak demand, Morocco is aiming to convert their OCGT and CCGT capacity at the LNG terminal in Jorf Lasfar to LNG operation. This also includes adding 2 400 MW of new gas-fired thermal capacity. Here is the opportunity for Morocco to both create significant annual savings in power production, and to enable the integration of more renewables into the national power system.

To exemplify the need for flexible energy capacity in the Moroccan energy system, a simple simulation can be run to compare the effects of replacing CCGT technology with ICE-based technology at the LNG terminal in Jorf Lasfar. The study shows that already a small amount of ICE in the Moroccan system would create significant savings. It is therefore clear that the role of this new 2 400 MW of new gas power capacity must not consist of base load plants, but intermittent and peak load plants.

Simply put: Flexibility is needed.

THE FUTURE CAN BE IN MOROCCO'S OWN HANDS

With increasing amounts of installed internal combustion engine capacity, Morocco’s dependency on export power from Spain can be reduced by up to 850 GWh annually. This gives Morocco more independence over its national grid and power system instead of relying on an external source of electricity.

Internal combustion engines have many more benefits for Morocco that go beyond successfully integrating more intermittent renewables, providing safety and stability to the national grid, obtaining big financial savings and being less dependent on export power from Spain. How do improvements to the capacity factors of large thermal plants in Morocco and significantly increased amounts of non-spinning power system reserves sound like?

Download our presentation to read more about the benefits flexible gas-based internal combustion engines can bring to Morocco.

LET'S TALK

Morocco has ambitious targets for increasing the overall share and amount of intermittent, unpredictable renewable energy sources to 26% of the entire energy capacity of the national power system. At the same time, simulations clearly show that any new gas-based energy capacity in Morocco must be highly flexible to gain any benefits from incorporating more renewables into the grid.

About Wärtsilä

Wärtsilä is a global leader in advanced technologies and complete lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. By emphasising sustainable innovation and total efficiency, Wärtsilä maximises the environmental and economic performance of the vessels and power plants of its customers.